The Future Of Mobile Gaming

One of the more recent developments in the video game industry has been the advent of mobile gaming. While it hasn’t taken the reins from console and computer based gaming, it has found success among audiences that otherwise would not be consumers in the industry, therefore cementing its existence for some time to come at the very least. But to have an idea as to where mobile gaming may end up in the future, we must first understand the strengths of mobile gaming and why it experienced success in the first place.

Existing in a realm apart from not only traditional console-based gaming but hand-held gaming as well, mobile gaming has more in common with current computer-based gaming more than anything else. The reason for this is that while console and hand-held gaming are impossible to separate from the hardware that they run on, mobile gaming is not as intrinsically tied their hardware of phones and tablets.

The result of this is that mobile gaming has achieved a certain aspect that the whole of the video game industry has been striving toward for years, and that aspect is its accessibility. In order for someone to play a console game, they would first have to buy the console itself and any other hardware (such as controllers) to do so. When totaled together with the cost of the desired video game—as well as any additional games that someone may want to purchase—the price tag on console gaming can be several hundred dollars and upwards just to get started.

Mobile gaming does not suffer from this intimidating starting price that hampers console gaming. The biggest factor that lends mobile gaming an edge is that the platform for it is something that is not entirely rooted in gaming. If someone unfamiliar with the video game industry were to buy a gaming console and find that they are not as interested in the hobby as they thought they would be, then the console is practically useless to them. They have ultimately lost a good sum of money for not nearly enough of a payoff.

With mobile gaming, however, this is not an issue, as not only do phones, tablets, and the like have many more uses outside of gaming, the games themselves tend to be much less expensive. Mobile gaming is much less of an investment, and that is why it has seen such success among people who typically don’t play video games.

As the video game industry progresses, it would be difficult to imagine mobile gaming deviating from the course that has resulted in the success that it has gained. It has proven that there is indeed a market for the types of games that the platform spawns, and even though the relative pricing of mobile games are dwarfed by their console counterparts, many developers have been met with lucrative success for their efforts.

One such example of mobile gaming at its finest is Puzzle and Dragons, developed by GungHo Online Entertainment. Despite the fact that the game itself is free-to-play, this match-three style puzzle game has been a massive lucrative success through its usage of micro-transactions. By establishing a solid groundwork of game play that is fun enough to incentivize the purchase of in-game currency, this title stands as a testament to the video game industry that mobile games—while they are different from traditional console games—can be massively successful.

Conclusions

The future of mobile gaming is one that is not likely to deviate much from the path that it is currently on. Mobile games provide a fun experience for a wide audience, and so long as developers of these games continue to produce content that consumers are willing to pay for, the current landscape will likely not shift for some time.